The GOD Box (32 page)

Still, it sickened
and frustrated him.

There were other people he saw who didn’t seem to be so angry; families that got along. So many bachelors were in their small, but adequate, housing. He couldn’t help but determine how bizarre it all was. But this wasn’t the same thing Dane was always talking about with right and wrong choices… just a different way of living he had never thought of. Maybe it would work. And maybe lunch was finally done. He headed back, getting a little lost and taking more time than before. He thought he found the right back door and looked in the window to see two men sitting at a table. Must be it. They ate without him
!
Assholes
.

“
What the Hell? Really? You couldn’t come find me?”

Dane shrugged nonchalantly, “I opened the door and called your name, but you left
.” They laughed. It was apparent that Dane was feeling hostile toward him.

“Did you eat it all, then?” Jonathan said accusingly.

“Not if you ask
nicely
.” Dane said, patronizingly, and requiring more from Jonathan than he wanted to give.

___

It was funny to say, considering their attitudes, but something had changed for the better in their relationship. Dane wasn’t going to complain and he wasn’t going to mention it, for fear that when Jonathan recognized that Dane recognized it he would deny the whole thing. They were conversing. What a novel idea! They were “discussing” problems. Sort of.

On the road again. Jonathan was playing with that infernal device.

Dane was incredulous
. Couldn’t he walk and just… think? What was so bad about thinking? Well, okay, he knew what was so bad about it. His every moment right now was dwelling on memories and pain. How he wished they would go away. He saw the way he was becoming insecure about every other relationship he thought he possessed and kept trying to tell himself it was just the depression. But his battle and counter-battle had to change tactics. The counter argument was winning. What he needed to do was talk about something completely unrelated to anything they had done or thought about in the last two and a half months. A distraction, something like that stupid colorful beeping black box would need to be the topic.

Dane cleared his throat, “So that looks like fun.”

With a physical intensity Dane rarely experienced, Jonathan pounded the buttons with this thumbs, and didn’t respond. Dane watched over his shoulder, figuring out that the game was played by trying to fit the falling piece into the stationary pieces. Something happened and the pieces all disappeared. Jonathan swore at Dane for ruining his game.

“Come on, man!” He said. “Bug off.”

Perseverance would be the key here for Dane to ever learn about the game.
Think Jonathan, think. Let’s talk about something other than work, for once.
How long it took Dane to finally convince him, he wasn’t sure. But, they had reached the borders of the jungle and the sun was coming down.

“Ah!” Jonathan proclaimed. “Finally. Here.” And he handed over the game, but
as Dane began to play it, Jonathan was then looking at his watch constantly.

“Are we close?” He whined. Dane didn’t answer; he was too busy with the game. He underestimated the difficulty of it. He tried to talk as he played,

“Did you have a lot of games like this?”

“Well, yeah. That is the simplest form of those games. Really simple. They once created a room where you put a suit on and choose weapons and magic, and it takes you on a journey and there are peopl
e you meet that look like real people, only they’re just holographs, or computerized images, but you can choose to be their ally or enemy – pretty much you could talk to them like real people with real emotions. There’s usually a goal, like finding the princess, or the lost artifact, or saving the world. And you just… pretend.”

“You lost me.” Dane said, not looking up.

“Bah” Jonathan said, shooing the original question away with the wave of his hand.

The game to Dane was surprisingly boring after you lost twenty times, so he quit and handed it back to Jonathan who pulled up another game. Honestly, Dane
was
somewhat interested, so the conversation didn’t have to be all that forced coming from his end. They ended up having a decent conversation leading up to the campsite. Deeper in the jungle was so dark that Jonathan started tripping over tree roots because he wasn’t paying attention. Out of necessity he stopped the game and pulled something else out of the bottom of his bag.

“What’s that?” Dane asked.

“It’s called a flashlight.”
Jonathan said stiffly, flipped a knob on the bottom and a very powerful light came out of the other end and lit up their path like the sun was out. Dane wanted to look at it, but was blinded every time he tried to understand what was creating the light.

The
jungle was familiar to Dane and so he asked if he could navigate. Mostly he just wanted to use the flashlight…

They found the typical spot by the rock and made a fire
to cook one of the chickens. Jonathan was calm for once, distracted by his game. Dane was pretending to be calm. Again, to babysit Jonathan’s comfort, Dane didn’t pull out the green book, even though he wanted to. That didn’t keep him from thinking about it all night. All the reminders of the last few days were rotating through his head. Even marriage was keeping him occupied, hardly related to May, but more the concept of the thing. Why was it related to the book and used as an analogy? It didn’t make sense.

Besides, he needed something. He was in emotional pain that he couldn’t explain nor quite comprehend.
Often flipping through the book for something to encourage him, he was hoping to find something now. There was so much more he needed to learn about this issue of the book. How could he learn any of it from a locked human vault? The weird thing to Dane, was that Jonathan didn’t really seem to know much about it by way of details, anyhow. So maybe, they got all they could from him, which was simply a distaste for the book itself, and what it represented.

Waiting for Jonathan to fall asleep was like the worst kind of nightmare.
Dane thought a lot about boxes. Jonathan said sometimes you create one for yourself. Dane’s box would be… big enough for two, at least at the moment. It would have to have the ability to expand depending on how well he’s coping with his depression. His requirements would be that each person would have to have decent intelligence to enter. Wait, no, it was requirements to exit? Was he sure? Or was it just that the box was the only thing that existed and the requirements did what? Now he was confused. Maybe he’d figure that out later.

May’s would be all inclusive and she would just expect you
to create good relationships. Would that work… thinking about that, if every person created good relationships with everyone else, then no one would be bad, or do bad… right? That would be freedom, correct? The expectations led to freedom… that was the point of the box, right? Dane looked over cynically to see Jonathan poking with an utterly bored expression at the fire where there was a nearly roasted chicken. Jonathan’s box would be bigger than everyone else’s, but he’d insist there was only room enough for himself, and the requirements for freedom – be awesome and kick everyone else out.

Thomas would have some kind of intense and intricate political theory, with its own set of rules a mile long. He would do everything he could to put everyone on equal grounds. Was a level playing
field the thing that made them free? Dane felt more like life’s box was tilted, almost on some kind of axis, then sometimes, for no good at all, flipped upside-down. But did that make life unfair… did that make people un-free? If freedom was the objective, what would
he
do? Dane came out of his zone and realized he was making box shapes with his hands. Didn’t matter, really, Jonathan wasn’t noticing.

Dane asked abruptly, “What are the requirements of the God box?”

“The God box?” he asked as if offended he had ever participated in a conversation that would ever require bringing that up.

“You don’t remember our conversation?”

“Um… the ten commandments. Be nice?” He said sarcastically, covering up the fact that he didn’t know.

“Commandments?”

“Rules”

“Oh…”

“There was a little pneumonic device I learned when I was young to remember them. Even with good memory I can’t seem to go back that far. Something like, God is the only one you can worship… respect your parents… don’t do things that offend your neighbors… like adultery and stealing… junk like that.”

“Adultery?”

“Means cheating on who you married. Or – having a relationship with someone else while you’re married.” He saw Dane’s confused face, “Or – you know… you commit adultery… Agh! You have sex with someone you shouldn’t.”

“Oh… that was part of the God box? I thought it was more like government than regulations on personal choices?”

“Well, it is… sort of… too hard to explain.” Jonathan crossed his arms and looked smugly at the trees.

Guess they were done with that conversation.
Unfortunately for Jonathan, Dane was terribly interested, “why did you learn that when you were little?”

“Mom took me to church – till I was ten, then I refused after that.”

This was like pulling teeth. It hurt for him to try to be so proactive. Dane didn’t know how to force this all out of him.

“Why’d you refuse?”

“I just didn’t believe it. I never did. They think that children are closer to God somehow, because they have a pure spirit, or some junk like that. I think that’s a load of bull.”

“So when you got married, did she believe in God?”

“No.”

“Did you have any kids?”

“One, but I lost contact after the divorce.”

“What does divorce mean?”

“You get legally separated from the person you married. Or - you’re no longer legally recognized as married, for taxing and housing and benefits purposes.”

“And why were you separated?”

“Why the Hell are you now asking these personal questions? Its irritating.”

“Because your perspective on life is interesting, and doesn’t really mean much if I don’t know why you feel that way.”
Dane said very sincerely.

“We were married for ten
years, but just started leading separate lives. What explanation do you want? She cheated on me, and I knew she didn’t love me anymore…” He sighed and looked back into the trees, “I tried to forgive her. I worked too much she said. She accused me of having an affair with my work. Well at some point I had the distinct realization I didn’t love her either. So it was time to be done. I haven’t thought about her in a long time. At some point dedication to one person seems so trivial.”

“I disagree, as I’m sure you would expect. But one more question, what is an affair?”

“You know, I don’t get that.” Jonathan said, rather aggressively, “You know love and children and even you specifically know about loyal relationships, but you don’t know the definitions of marriage and affair. Everybody wins, then? A happy medium; love all around! No one is dedicated, no one gets hurt. That’s what you know, everyone shares, and why isn’t that enough for you?! You want to know the polar distinctions; you want to put people on unfair ground?”

“Is a tradition of mediocrity fair? And how does a choice to be dedicated mean unfairness?”

“That is the box! The box is defining things like that, marriage good, divorce bad, why define any of that, if you can just love whoever you want? You can make your own definitions!”

Dane didn’t argue after that. He sat for a few more hours while Jonathan fumed. Was it possi
ble Dane was wrong? He wondered… but it didn’t make sense. It didn’t line up. If May was right, and it was all about relationships… should there be levels of relationships? A hierarchy of dedication, or should every relationship be equal? Dane became worried that not even the little green book answered that question. But then, if Thomas was right, and people needed limitations by rules… was that closer to understanding the God box? Was it government based?

He was driving himself crazy. He thought about May, and was wishing she was with them
so he could bounce ideas off of her… His head hurt now and he felt like he was going crazy. Too many thoughts, too few answers, too much assumption on where this would take them all. How could they, small and meager people, allow some knowledge and disallow others? His own preaching about allowing people to choose. Oy. He couldn’t do this, he never realized the enormous consequence. If there was a ‘right’ way… then would he fight for it?

The box… the commandments… the relationships… and then… freedom? No… It couldn’t work like that.
He thought about May, who originally wanted freedom to do what she wanted and not be strapped to home. But her desires changed. Maybe that was it… maybe it was the definition of freedom that was the confusion. Perhaps freedom was the ability to change your desires for good.

Dane felt like he was wrest
ling with himself. Shut up, Shut up! He was overwhelmed and felt the enormity of the task. Not to mention, even if Jonathan tried not to show it, he felt guilt or pain about his choices, and Dane seemed to feel the same thing – not because he thought he and May would come to that end, but the immensity of how it would feel; the horror on discovery of faulty loyalty. He put his head between his knees. Whatever they were going to find out tomorrow would change his whole life, and that was intimidating. Before a few months ago, he never felt like this. An adventure is what he thought it was – schooling at its most intense definition.